On Shopping

I don't shop because I need something, I just shop for shopping's sake. - Cat Deeley

Going to the mall or supermarket is something we do on a weekly basis. I call it marketing but my wife insists on “shopping”. There’s a lot of difference regarding this between men and women. I’m generalizing because shopping traits seems common to all women. In my college days, I used to accompany my Mom shopping when she comes to Manila and I noticed the same approach from my wife. It’s not hereditary because their not related except through me. So I conclude it lies more on gender.

Take for example when we need clothes, I go directly to the shop selling it, choose the one I like, pay for it and I’m out of there. With my wife it’s completely different. When were unfortunate to park at one end of the mall and the shop is at the other end, then things gets tiresome. She’ll enter every shop at each side, do a pirouette, and comes out without buying anything until we reached our intended target. “Just checking” is her usual reason.

Supermarket is the same. It’s much faster if I do it alone. I know which aisle contains what goods. So even if I got a foot-long of grocery list, I can accomplished it in 45 minutes to 1 hour tops, depending on how long the queue at the check-out counter.

My wife does it the long way. She’ll start at Aisle 1, zigzagging up to Aisle 12. Always scrutinizing each merchandise for flaws, or bent or anything she may considers imperfect. If she sees a new product, she’ll inspect it like a quality assurance agent. She’ll turn it up, down and sideway for manufacturing defect. Then the labels, reading each tiny letters of the product’s ingredients, check the expiry date and then the price. If she’s satisfied, she’ll return it back on the shelf. But that’s not the end of it. After we’re finished and hauled everything in the car, she’ll instruct me to go to another supermarket a couple of blocks away. If I ask why, she’ll say a few of the items we need are much cheaper there by 10 halalas (1SR = 100 halalas). My wife is a good teacher. She taught me the wisdom of patience.

People with PhD’s wrote that these characteristics are remnants of the hunter-gatherer era. But for crying out loud, we are now in the modern age. We no longer rummage through bushes and check if certain vegetations are edible or not. We have factories that do that for us (unless it comes from China or some peanut butter brand in the Philippines). We have BFAD and DOH to tell us if it contains E.coli or salmonella.

This kind of shopping doesn't only wear you down, it's a waste of time. I guess some habits are just too hard to die.